Holly Jacobs - Here with Me

Normally, the memories here in her grandmother’s cottage helped keep the nightmares away. She looked at her cottage’s twin. When she was very small, her great-aunt had lived there. Now, behind its door was Adam Benton.

Matty.

He must be why she’d been working on that particular piece of jewelry in her dream.

She turned away from the window and opened a small chest at the foot of her bed. It was stuffed with childhood mementos.

She pushed aside a high-school pennant, an old diary, and some photographs before she finally found what she was looking for. The small seashell-covered Popsicle-stick box she used to keep trinkets in was exactly as she remembered it. Inside was the first piece of beach-glass jewelry she’d ever made. The worn chip of clear glass was shaped like a heart. The piece she’d been working on in tonight’s dream.

As she fingered it, she couldn’t help remembering that last meeting with him so many years ago.

She got up and went back to the window. Eighteen years ago. She smiled remembering her grandmother’s story about the dew. But no prince had ridden to find her that day, just Matty Benton announcing he was leaving for New York.

He’d left this small piece of glass on the fence post that day.

And now he was back.

Everything always happens for a reason.

Her grandmother had believed in things like destiny and magic. Even if she’d never set foot on the Irish shores, she’d been at heart an Irish woman with a gift for the blarney.

Magic does exist, she’d told Lee.

While her parents had been busy with work, busy chasing after their next big deal, her grandmother had told her stories of Ireland. She’d always had time for Lee.

Her mother and father had built big careers, while her grandmother had built love. Her parents were in Philadelphia now, still working day-in and day-out.

To Lee, career should be a four-letter word.

To this day, her parents frowned on Singer’s Treasures.

After all, it wasn’t a real job. She kept very short hours at the shop—noon to five—preferring to do most of her work here at the cottage. And recently, she’d hired someone to help out part-time.

Not a real job, was her parents’ refrain. Her mother’s lecture the other day had been much the same as all the others. There was no future in her work.

Try as she might, Lee had never been able to make them understand she worked to support her living; she didn’t live to work.

There was a difference.

It was a difference they had never been able to appreciate.

A movement caught her eye. A curtain billowed at Adam’s cottage.

Maybe the baby was up, scared to wake in the dark in a strange house. Maybe it had cried, prompting her dream.

Lee slid her window open, so she’d be able to hear any noise, but all she could hear was the familiar sound of waves lapping the shore.

She slipped a throw over her shoulders, made her way through the dark house that hadn’t really changed since her childhood, and out onto the porch.

Still nothing.

It must have been her imagination.

She sank into one of the rocking chairs. Creaking it back and forth as she gazed out over the star-studded sky and the last traces of her nightmare faded, she lost herself in the natural beauty of the lake, remembering why she loved it here.

“Can’t sleep?” came Adam’s voice from the step.

She jumped. She hadn’t heard him coming over. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound overly contrite. He took the other rocker without waiting for an invitation.

They rocked together in companionable silence for quite a while.

Finally Lee said, “Won’t your wife miss you?”

“I don’t have a wife, Lee.”

She wanted to ask who the woman in the park was then, but she didn’t. She simply asked, “Is your baby all right by herself?”

“The cottages sit so close to one another that I’m sure I can hear her if she calls. I left the window open. She’ll holler if she wakes up again. You might have noticed, but she’s not exactly quiet and subtle.”

Lee laughed. “She does have a good set of lungs, as my grandmother used to say.”

So where was the baby’s mother? Lee burned with curiosity, but couldn’t think of a way to ask without seeming as if she were prying. Pearly wouldn’t hesitate just to ask, but Lee couldn’t, so she said nothing.

The silence didn’t feel awkward. They simply rocked and stared out at the dark expanse.

Adam was the first one to speak again. “I was sorry to hear when your grandmother passed away. She was a true lady.”

It had been five years, but Lee still missed her grandmother’s gentle presence in her life. “Thank you. How did you hear?”

“I have the Erie paper mailed to me in New York. I didn’t want to lose my connection to this place. I had some happy memories here.”

“Oh.”

“I saw the article about Singer’s Treasures last month. I didn’t know you were the up-and-coming artist they were talking about until I saw your picture. You won the Jones Award for Art. That was impressive. I almost called to congratulate you.”

“Really?” He’d followed her through the paper? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

As if he sensed her feelings, he said, “It’s not as if I got the paper to monitor you.”

“I never thought that,” she denied.

“You wondered if maybe I was some sort of stalker.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He tsk-tsked.

Really, tsk-tsked, like Pearly Gates would tsktsk someone.

“You sound like an old woman,” she said, teasing him. “Tsk-tsk, deary, and all that.”

“Picking on me already, Singer? As I recall, you were always picking on me.”

“Funny,” she said, “I seem to remember it the other way around.”

“Rather than argue who was the pickee and who was the picker, I’ll say good night. Jessie gets up very early. She hates to miss out on anything by sleeping.”

“Good night,” Lee said.

She watched him walk back to his place. When his cottage door shut, she went back in as well and went to bed. When she finally slept, she dreamed the same dream she’d had regularly since that morning when she was ten.

A dark, shadowy figure of a man leaning down toward her whispering her grandmother’s words, “Magic does exist.”

For the first time in a long time, she wished she could believe it were true.

The room was bright when Lee opened her eyes the next morning.

Way too bright.

And loud.

Normally the only sounds in the morning were the waves and maybe an occasional bird. Today, something was disturbing the usual peace and quiet.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Lee groaned as she crawled out of bed. She’d tossed and turned all night—not because she’d had a repeat nightmare. Instead, every time she did manage to fall asleep, she saw him.

The dark man of her dreams.

It was disturbing.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Her sleep-muddled mind slowly cleared and she realized that the noise was someone pounding at the door.

Pulling on an old robe, she went and opened it. Adam stood, holding his squirmy baby.

“I woke you,” he said. “I’m sorry. Go back to bed.” He turned around, as if he were going to leave.

“Don’t be silly. It’s way past time I was up. Do you want some coffee?”

“I’d love some, but I don’t have time. I have a teleconference.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“I know, but this last month has been crazy. The talk is about two weeks overdue, so I took it when I could. Unfortunately, I foolishly thought I could manage it with Jessie, but she’s bent on exploring the new house. She’s already unrolled all the toilet paper, emptied out the bottom cupboard, and—”